Col Legno's Helmut Lachenmann: Ausklang/Tableau combines two of contemporary German composer Lachenmann's works from the 1980s, both heard in their world-premiere performances, given in 1986 and 1989 respectively. Ausklang is described as a "ein heimliche Symphonie" (a hidden symphony), but actually behaves more like a piano concerto. Although we are informed that this symphony has "clearly recognizable traditional subdivisions into the characteristic types of movements and tempi within a seemingly one-movement form," such ...
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Col Legno's Helmut Lachenmann: Ausklang/Tableau combines two of contemporary German composer Lachenmann's works from the 1980s, both heard in their world-premiere performances, given in 1986 and 1989 respectively. Ausklang is described as a "ein heimliche Symphonie" (a hidden symphony), but actually behaves more like a piano concerto. Although we are informed that this symphony has "clearly recognizable traditional subdivisions into the characteristic types of movements and tempi within a seemingly one-movement form," such subdivisions are not apparent to the listener, nor are they reflected in the track assignment; Ausklang is presented as a single, uninterrupted movement. We are supposed to be amused by Lachenmann's mixture of "euphonious" sounds with noise, but all of it is noisy -- Ausklang sounds like John Cage's Concert for piano and orchestra on a collision course with Stockhausen's Grüppen. Addressed as an answer to the incomprehensible critical charge that Lachenmann is a composer of "denial,"...
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